The spokesperson for Eastern District of Virginia has confirmed that the United States Justice Department’s investigation into WikiLeaks continues. The confirmation came when asked to comment on search warrants that were served against Google for data associated with three of the media organization’s staff members. And, in an interview for The Washington Post, a lawyer for Google explained that the company had fought the gag orders, which prohibited them from informing WikiLeaks staff about the search warrants.

The United States government served search warrants on Google in March 2012 and demanded that the company hand over data from WikiLeaks staff members for the purpose of an investigation into violations of the Espionage Act, Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), a larceny statute and a “conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud the United States” statute.

Search monopoly Google is facing new scrutiny as Wikileaks Editor-In-Chief Julian Assange has accused the company of essentially being a tool for the US government. In his new book Assange reportedly claims that, contrary to public proclamations of a commitment to privacy, Google gives the FBI and CIA open access to Google users’ information with no opposition whatsoever. Assange also recounts a meeting with Google executives where most of the participants ended up being US State Department officials.

While accusations that Google does not respect user privacy rights and happily collaborates with the government are nothing new, one new development could pose a serious problem.

At the very least it is time for Americans to stop idealizing Silicon Valley as made up of dreamers and rebels and understand that the technology sector is pursuing its economic interests – which are considerable – in much the same way other major industries are. Given that reality, the same kind of skepticism should be applied to their motives and regulations applied to their activities as other parts of the corporate sector.

On Sept. 18, Julian Assange’s new book of that name was published. The material was largely fashioned from conversations he’d had with Google’s Eric Schmidt in 2011 at Ellingham Hall in Norfolk, England where Assange was living under house arrest. The ostensible purpose of the requested meeting was to discuss idea for a book that Schmidt and Jared Cohen (advisor to both Susan Rice and Hillary Clinton) were going to write, and in fact did: The New Digital Age (2013). They were accompanied by the book’s editor Scott Malcomson, former senior advisor for the UN and member of the Council on Foreign Relations, who eventually worked at the US State Department; plus Lisa Shields, vice president of the Council on Foreign Relations, closely tied to the State Department, who was Schmidt’s partner at the time. Hmmm. The plot, as they say, thickens.

When we go to the interested third parties and educate them, many of those real winners are disgusted with what they hear. Combining that education with appeals to both personal and stated corporate values systems and you have a solid package to help them decide to walk away.

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) may lose two prominent technology companies due to its denialism on climate change. Facebook and Google will apparently break with the conservative policymaking group over ALEC’s position of, as Google Chairman Eric Schmidt put it, “literally lying” about climate change.

While many in the tech industry appear to have no trouble collaborating with those illegally spying on American citizens, it is instructive to see what happened to the companies that even put up mild resistance to the NSA’s mission of “collect it all.”

Though Google may have US officials on the end of a string it is facing serious pushback in Europe. Calls for the search monopoly to be broken up and more heavily regulated have been voiced from high government officials as the company that once claimed the motto of “don’t be evil” is seen as a creeping threat to civil liberties and an open market for competition.